I. Field of the Invention
This invention involves an interior security door for an aircraft.
II. Description of Related Art
Following the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks, measures have been taken to increase security of aircraft cockpits. These measures have among other involved the door separating the cockpit of an aircraft from its cabin. According to new standards, this door must form a barrier preventing any intrusion into the cockpit and entry into the cockpit must now be limited only to navigating personnel.
As in the past, these cockpit doors must however open automatically when a depression occurs, either on the cabin side or on the cockpit side.
The purpose of this invention is to increase security on board of an airplane by making access to the cockpit even more difficult to an intruder.
It has been noticed that in spite of the presence of security systems preventing the opening of a door, the latter is opened to let for instance the pilot or the co-pilot pass through and an intruder can make use of such opening to get into the cockpit because security devices are not operating at that time. As such, one of the weak points of present cockpit doors is that these are sometimes open during flight, such as for a long carrier flight. An original idea at the basis of the invention is to prevent passengers to whom access to the cockpit is prohibited, from knowing when the cockpit door is open.
In certain aircraft, the cockpit door is located at the end of an aisle that serves a space essentially used by navigating personnel and where toilets are usually located. Certain airline companies accept that these toilets be used by passengers.
The idea at the origin of this invention is to close off this aisle by a second door on the cabin side. The main purpose of this second door is to be a visual barrier preventing the passenger from seeing whether the door is open or closed.
A solution consists of providing a curtain at the end of the aisle opposite the cockpit door. This solution may be appropriate but it is clear that it is not very dissuasive for an aggressor.